Representatives of many of the Coachella Valley's top businesses, groups and organizations gathered on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at Copa Nightclub for the Best of Coachella Valley 2016-2017 Party.

The revelry was the culmination of a process that started back in August, when first-round voting in the third annual Coachella Valley Independent readers' poll began. The top three to five vote-getters in each category then moved on to a second round of voting, which took place through October. The results were announced at CVIndependent.com on Nov. 28 and in the December edition of the Independent.

Held at Copa, the Best Nightclub winner, the party was hosted by Independent editor/publisher Jimmy Boegle. After the awards, Best Local Band winner Venus and the Traps treated the audience to a set.

Below are pictures from the evening, by Independent contributor Cory Courtney. Enjoy!

Here are the results of the third annual Best of Coachella Valley readers' poll!

An all-time-high number of people voted in both rounds this year—and the slate of winners and finalists represent all parts of the valley.

Come celebrate the winners with us during the Best of Coachella Valley 2016-2017 Awards Show and Celebration, presented by Renova Solar. It will take place at 5:30 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 7, at Copa Nightclub—this year's Best Nightclub winner.

Thanks to all of you who voted in this year's poll!

Welcome to the Best of Coachella Valley 2016-2017.

—Jimmy Boegle, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I went to see the final performance of The Outgoing Tide—Dezart Performs’ 2015-2016 season-closing play—back in May with my friend Robert. Both Robert and I are … well, curmudgeonly, to put it kindly. While we had high expectations due to the production’s rave reviews—about an older couple and their adult son coming to terms with the father’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease—we most certainly did not expect to be blubbering our eyes out at the end … and there we were, along with much of the rest of the audience at the Palm Springs Woman’s Club, sniffling and weeping. Judith Chapman, Scott Smith and most especially Michael Fairman (who played Gunner, the father) knocked it out of the figurative park, thanks in no small part due to the amazing direction by Michael Shaw. If you ever hear of this play being performed elsewhere, I highly recommend going to see it—but I’d be shocked if that show is as good as the one put onstage last spring by Dezart Performs. Jeez, I am tearing up just thinking about it.

—Jimmy Boegle

Best Tailor

Pero Dzekov at Pero’s Tailor Shop

For more than 45 years, Pero Dzekov has worked in a trade that does not forgive a mistake: He’s a tailor, a master craftsman whose clients include celebrities of a highest caliber, including Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow. Both singers have penned accolades to him on their photographs that hang in his Smoke Tree Village shop. Dzekov, an immigrant from Macedonia, is fond of saying that his favorite clients were publisher Walter Annenberg and Agua Caliente Tribal Chairman Richard Milanovich. On any given day, you’ll see familiar faces in his shop—former Palm Springs Mayor Ron Oden, perhaps, or Palm Springs City Manager David Ready—but Dzekov is most proud of the fact that many of his clients have been repeatedly coming back since the 1970s.

—Brane Jevric

Best Local Album

Bridger, Forces Against Us

Many great bands in the Coachella Valley released fantastic albums over the last year, including Dali’s Llama and The Hellions. However, to my ear, there is one new album that stands out: Bridger’s Forces Against Us. Numerous local musicians took to social media to express their love for the album; however, making a great album wasn’t enough for the band: Bridger even made a hilarious music video for the Forces Against Us song “Death to Snowbirds,” There’s no doubt that Bridger is an awesome live band—and Forces Among Us proved that Bridger can turn in fantastic music in the studio, too.

—Brian Blueskye

Best Ukulele Master

John Robbins

John Robbins is a well-known local musician—who plays a not-so-well-known instrument: He plays a mean ukulele. Robbins has opened many shows for local bands, and he recently took part in an acoustic showcase. Robbins, who is visually impaired, also has many other talents, including being visual artist; in fact, he recently signed with an independent Web-based comic publisher. When you mention John’s name to local musicians or music fans, the first thing they say often say is, “The guy who plays an awesome ukulele?” He deserves all the recognition he can get.

—Brian Blueskye

Best Guilty Pleasure Food

The Atomic Tots at The Hood Bar and Pizza

When I need comfort food and don’t give a rat’s behind about diet or calories … chances are you’ll find me devouring the atomic tots at The Hood Bar and Pizza. They’re definitely not good for you (I hope my primary care physician isn’t reading this), but that gooey cheese and the bits of bacon melted all over those little potato barrels create a piece of fat-intensive heaven. I’m not the only one with these feelings for the atomic tots; many locals frequent The Hood Bar and Pizza just for these tasty treats.

—Brian Blueskye

Best Place to Pig Out on Sugar-Free Desserts

The Fresh Grill Buffet at Fantasy Springs

Gym workouts have minimal effects on me, and no diet seems to last … but at least I get some small bit of dietary help at the Fresh Grill Buffet at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino: It features an ample selection of delicious sugar-free desserts every day at lunch and dinner. At the giant dessert table (two levels tall, with a chocolate fountain and soft-serve ice cream to boot), an entire section is devoted to lower-calorie goodies. Gorgeous layer cakes, crumbly cookies, pies and even cheesecake are available—and since it’s a buffet, have as much as you like! However, consider yourself warned: The white sauce beside the cheesecake is loaded with sugar, and sometimes cobblers that are not sugar-free will elbow their way into this space. Whenever I meet the chefs, I thank them on behalf of my endangered waistline. For those born with a sweet tooth, here is our salvation. Just don’t look at the sugary competition on the rest of the table.

—Valerie-Jean (V.J.) Hume

Best Happy Hour Meal

The Capricciosa Pizza at Piero’s PizzaVino

There are many, many dining options in Palm Desert on or near El Paseo—but when I find myself hungry while running around the area, more often than not, I wind up in the bar area of Piero’s PizzaVino. Why? Well, every day from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., Piero’s offers one of the area’s most amazing happy hour menus—including the unbelievably delicious capricciosa pizza. This amazing pie comes with tomato sauce, mozzarella, ham, mushrooms, artichoke hearts and olives—and it’s always cooked to perfection in Piero’s brick oven. Not only does this personal-size pizza taste amazing and fill you up; it only costs $8.90. Add in a tasty glass of the house chianti for $5, and you can still get out of there with tax and a nice tip for less than $20. What a deal.

Various local DJs and EDM artists have come and gone in recent years—and all the while, DJ Day has continuously been turning in fantastic performances both locally and around the world.

Palm Springs native DJ Day—aka Damien Beebe—is the winner of the first Best of Coachella Valley Legacy Award.

During an interview in 2013, Beebe said that he grew up as a latchkey kid in Palm Springs, raised by a single mother. He learned how to DJ on a one-piece turntable from Kmart he got for Christmas one year. Locals who have watched DJ Day for years will tell you they remember that one-piece turntable setup, which he rigged so he could scratch while a boombox played a cassette in the background.

During a recent interview, Beebe explained what made him want to become a DJ.

“Going back to like 1988 or 1989, hearing people like DJ Jazzy Jeff was a major influence on me,” Beebe said. “There was an album put out by the Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff called He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, and it was a double album, and one whole side was dedicated to just the DJ. Before that, hearing the scratching on Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’—that was definitely the first time I really went, ‘Holy shit, what is that sound?’ It was totally foreign and unique. Hearing that made me get infatuated with the sound of scratching. From there, I tried to get anything I could with scratching in it so I could learn.”

Beebe said that one-piece turntable became the tool he used to learn all of his scratching techniques.

“I would come home from school and just listen and try to come as close as I could, trying to emulate,” he said. “I would scratch old Charlie Brown records or anything that I had, like my mom’s old records—any kind of phrase or any sound I could use. I would hold the tape and the phono button down like an on/off switch or a fader. It was all by ear.”

There was not much of a hip-hop scene in Palm Springs while Beebe was growing up, but he still managed to find local influences.

“There was Club Z, which was this crazy 18-and-over club,” he said. “They did have some dope DJs in there. There were people I have to give props to—people like Fonzo and Ellis—and there were different DJs out here who influenced me, for sure.”

Beebe talked about his first major public failure—and what he learned from it.

“This is the thing that separates my era from today’s era: Back then, a lot of DJs would be at house parties. There was a guy named Renee who was a really dope DJ. The Filipino community out here also had a lot of good ones, too. I remember after a year or two of using my ghetto fucking turntable and tapedeck in my room, I never learned how to work turntables and a mixer. I went to a house party, because I felt confident enough, and I got up on the turntables—and it was like putting a monkey in a spaceship. I didn’t know what I was doing with the fader or anything like that. I completely fell apart, and it was totally terrible. I got booed in front of a fucking house party full of people outside. I still remember the moment, and someone came and pulled me off the turntables.

“I went to my friend’s house that night; (the friend had been at the party), too, and I remember seriously vowing I would come back and show everybody what the fuck is up. It’s those moments when you either fold and give up, or it makes you push harder and stronger by walking through that kind of fire.

“Now, with digital DJing, someone can just buy some shit and become a DJ overnight. Those kinds of lessons and trials to improve are lost.”

Beebe explained how he came across one instrument he often plays on his records.

“In 1999, there was a guy out here selling a Fender Rhodes piano for like $25, and now they go for way more than that,” he said. “One of the keys was broken, and it was a heavy antiquated electric keyboard. It was the sound that was in all of the records I had growing up, including Bob James’ ‘Take Me to the Mardi Gras,’ which is the basis of ‘Peter Piper’ by Run-DMC. I was excited to get that and just toyed around with it, learning by ear. I’ve gotten more serious with it during the last year, trying to actually learn it better.

“My dad played and learned by ear, so maybe there’s some kind of weird genetic shit going on. I just like to be student of all and master of none in terms of music.”

As a touring DJ, Beebe has seen it all. He talked about one time he was on tour with People Under the Stairs.

“I went on tour with them as a support act and to open the shows,” Beebe said. “The first show we did was in Santa Barbara—and someone stole my laptop off the stage the first night. They posed as photographers, got onstage and took anything they could grab, and my laptop bag ended up being one of those things. First night of the tour! Luckily, I had brought a bag of records with me—and that’s one of the benefits of having that foundation.

“I ended up getting it back. I tracked the guy who stole it down, and he was all apologetic and shit. Life is fucking weird!”

DJ Day has traveled around the world, to places as far-flung as Russia, Brazil, Israel, China and Japan. He admits there are times when he finds himself at a loss for words.

“The first time I went to Russia, I went completely alone—no tour manager or anyone else,” he said. “I get to the gig, and the first meal I have in Russia is a chicken quesadilla. That set the tone of weird shit out of the gate. The gig is in this old bomb shelter, and it’s a nightclub. It’s all funk and soul, and all vinyl that this one other guy is doing. The crowd is singing this fucking obscure soul song. The entire room erupted singing this song called ‘Blind Alley’ by the Emotions, which is not even a song American people know. It was so weird to be in Russia, in a bomb shelter, and hearing people sing an obscure soul song. That was really cool to see.”

When I called to let the members of Venus and the Traps know that our readers had voted for them as the 2016-2017 Best Local Band, they were surprised, to say the least.

The East Valley-based band beat out War Drum, The Myx, Brightener and the reigning champ, The Flusters. I headed to Indio to speak with the band members: James Montenegro (bass), Perla Martinez (vocals, guitar), Eddy Lazcano (guitar) and Moy Sanchez (drums).

“I was in shock,” Montenegro said. “I was like, ‘Really?!’ … I was sure The Flusters or Brightener were going to get it.”

Venus and the Traps may be a little more mysterious than those other finalists. I’ve only seen the band play a couple of times—yet the sound is unforgettable.

“We started in October of 2014,” Montenegro said. “Perla had written some songs, and I knew she wanted to start a band after her previous band dissolved. I told her I would help her out with some songwriting and playing bass. Perla’s aunt’s kids are taught by Moy; he teaches drums at (Thermal’s) Westside Elementary. Perla’s aunt was like, ‘We know a drummer.’ So we hit up Moy and started jamming with him. We had a guitarist, but he wasn’t able to come through, because he lived a ways away, and Moy suggested we bring in Eddy.

“By January 2015, we did our first show at Club 5, and we had a full set by then of eight or nine songs. The driving force is Perla; she was writing the songs before we became a thing.”

Why do they think they earned so many votes? Sanchez guessed it’s because the band isn’t afraid to step out of the box.

“It’s not a generic style, and it’s unique to us,” Sanchez said. “We’re all different, and that’s our sound.”

“Sometimes when we play shows, we see people just standing there, disinterested,” Martinez said. “But then they come up to us afterward like, ‘I really liked your band!’ I didn’t expect to get that comment from them, given they stood there with a scowl on their face. It’s random people who we never would even think would like us. We had this metalhead guy tell us one night, ‘You guys ripped it! You threw it down!’ and was super excited. It was really cool.”

Montenegro mentioned one show when the band members realized they may be on to something.

“We’re not easy to identify, as far as our sound and style is concerned,” he said. “… We played a hip-hop show at Plan B one time, and we were the only rock band there, and everyone else was playing off tracks and rapping. We thought, ‘How did we get this show? We’re going to bomb.’ When we were done, there were people clapping and coming up to us saying, ‘You sound great! You guys are dope!’ I think a lot of artists will show their appreciation for the music; it doesn’t matter kind of music it is.”

Martinez told a strange story about how the band’s name came to be.

“I had a dream, and in my dream, I was standing at the shore of the ocean,” Martinez said. “There was this big-ass gash on my hand, and I was bleeding all over the water. All of a sudden, a penis appeared. A wave brought this penis, and it’s just floating around with all the blood and everything. That was my dream, and that was it. I looked it up on Google. … The birth of Aphrodite and the thought of Venus went hand in hand. I was talking to a friend of mine, and he was like, ‘Venus flytraps,’ and I was like, ‘No, Venus and the Traps!’ We ended up just going with that. I am the only girl in the band, so it worked out that way. As far as traps (also a slang term for transgender people) go, people have come up to me saying, ‘No one is in drag in your band or transgender. So why do you call them that?’ In a way, we, as people, are kind of traps, and we always make different impressions on people.”

Lazcano discussed the band’s sound.

“I think I’m a writer in the moment,” Lazcano said. “I think I’ll suddenly be sitting there, and I’ll be like, ‘I need to play this.’ I’ll just stop whatever I’m doing. … Something in my mind is like, ‘Do this!’ and I’ll do it. I’m not someone who plans riffs or anything. Even when they show me riffs or whatever, I’ll be like, ‘OK, I kind of have an idea of what I want to do. … I’ll be at home or work, and it’s going to hit me.’ It does hit me eventually. It all gets pushed together like a nice cake of various flavors.”

Venus and the Traps have been recording and are nearly done with a six-track that should be released soon.

“These songs are the first ones we wanted to put out,” Martinez said. “One of my biggest things about making music is that I want documentation of it. These six songs are the first set, and we want to just put them out there.”

There are many alternative-newspaper editors out there who would take one look the story we put on the cover of our September print edition and instantly declare that I, your humble editor, am a total moron.

Stories about water-district boards, as a general rule, don’t sell newspapers. (Thank goodness the Independent is free, right?) So why, you might ask, did I decide to put a story about a water-district board on one of the only 12 covers the Independent has in year?

The answer is simple: This mundane-sounding story is really important.

It’s important for Coachella Valley residents to know that until two years ago, white people basically made up the entire board of the Coachella Valley Water District, the valley’s largest water agency, even though a third of the residents within the CVWD are Latino. It’s vital to know that many people within the CVWD boundaries don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water—largely because these people were never on the minds of the CVWD board members.

It’s crucial for the public to understand that while positive changes seem to finally be coming to the Coachella Valley Water District, there’s a lot of work to do—and it’s the public’s job to make sure that work actually gets done.

In completely unrelated news: It’s Best of Coachella Valley time again! Voting is now open in the first round of our annual readers’ poll. For more details, head to our Best of Coachella Valley page!

Be sure to follow the rules; for example, you have to vote in at least 15 categories; you need to put down your full name; and you need to provide a real, working email address. (If our test email bounces, we delete the ballot!) If we see more than a handful ballots coming from the same IP address, we’ll investigate to make sure the electronic ballot box is not being stuffed.

First-round voting takes place through Monday, Sept. 26. After that, the top three to five vote-getters in each category will advance to the final-round vote, which takes place throughout October. The winners and placement of the other finalists will be announced here at CVIndependent.com on Monday, Nov. 28, and in the December print edition. Email me if you have any questions!